Larry King Ending His Show After 25 Years, CNN Kind Of A Mess

After months of regularly getting beaten up in the press over his low ratings, Larry King announced last night that he would end "Larry King Live" in the fall, more than 25 years after it began airing on CNN, though he will stay with the network part-time to develop several specials "on major national and international subjects."

Before I start the show tonight, I want to share some personal news with you. 25 years ago, I sat across this table from New York Governor Mario Cuomo for the first broadcast of Larry King Live.

Now, decades later, I talked to the guys here at CNN and I told them I would like to end Larry King Live, the nightly show, this fall and CNN has graciously accepted, giving me more time for my wife and I to get to the kids’ little league games.

Meanwhile, The Wrap's Hunter Walker reports that there is "widespread resentment among producers and anchors" at CNN, and "that most of the anchors were jealous that Anderson Cooper sucked up resources by going to Haiti and the Gulf of Mexico, leaving them unable to build their profiles at the network." Cooper, who's contract is up next year, is said to be sniffing around for other offers, according to Walker.

The Larry King interview is an American institution, and nothing about the ups and downs of the cable industry and its competition from broadcast and all the other developments in our business can change that. He is an institution for a reason.

He is also somebody who nobody in the entire industry has a bad word to say about. To have been in the business as long as he has, and to have pretty much everybody think that he is a good guy is a sort of miracle, and is a real testament to him as a person.

I wish him all the best.

And Keith Olbermann tweeted: "Larry King is a lovely, generous man who tried, for 8 years, to convince his bosses to hire me to be his 8 PM lead-in at CNN."

King gave his endorsement to Ryan Seacrest, though rumors have been swirling that CNN is in serious talks with former British tabloid journalist Piers Morgan. Dylan Stableford gives a nice breakdown of the potential (and, for fun, not so potential) replacements over at The Wrap.